


tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us

by sevitent



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Blood and Injury, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Soulmate AU, he also has some really disturbing nightmares, implied drunk noncon, no beta we die like sephiroth. killed by the people we love, no happy ending, seph has mommy issues but that's just life, there's some minor zack/seph and zack/cloud but like. v minor, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:41:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22455922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevitent/pseuds/sevitent
Summary: angeal and genesis are in love. have been in love, are in love, will always be in love. sephiroth doesn't need love.or, a soulmate au where all of ags wear a line of loveless wrapped around their wrist; angeal and genesis saw them and knew, seph just pulls up his gloves around them and prays they don't notice
Relationships: Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos, Angeal Hewley/Genesis Rhapsodos/Sephiroth
Kudos: 40





	tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us

**Author's Note:**

> everyone say thank you richard siken for singlehandedly writing 99% of the titles on this site; alt titles included "so tell me you love me the way i love you" from you spent all your love and "seph gets royally fucked, literally and metaphorically"
> 
> *gets really sad and projects on sephiroth* wow. just uh. it's just seph being sad but gen and angeal are pretty happy so they got that going for them, idk the timeline, just assume they're all like. ~20
> 
> also please _please_ heed the tags—if there's anything that could even remotely hurt you please steer clear, i wrote this to get out some really heavy stuff in my own life but please take care of yourself

angeal wears his mark with pride.

a line of loveless, permanently etched around his wrist, indisputable proof that he's meant to be with the one and only genesis rhapsodos—he's only worn one glove since the day it appeared.

genesis feigns secrecy about his mark.

everyone knows it's a facade, at the slightest indication of interest, he'll carefully tug down his glove, black script proving that _yes, his_ (not your!) _soulmate is_ the _angeal hewley, thank you for asking._

sephiroth doesn’t have a mark.

had not, does not, will never have one. impractical, he had called them once, a waste of time and effort, who was fate to tell him who to love?

* * *

the first time sephiroth sells himself, it’s entirely by chance and not entirely by choice.

a few too many drinks at a fancy celebratory party has the world spinning in ways it shouldn’t, the wall he leans against the only thing keeping him upright as he watches people’s lives continue without him; someone says something behind him, smiles and waves before moving closer, placing himself between sephiroth and the rest of the party.

he recognizes the man, some sponsor of the soldier program, a man with more money than he could earn in a lifetime, a man whose arm is currently wrapped around his waist as they make their way to the exit.

genesis and angeal sway to a string quartet, oblivious as sephiroth’s dragged off to his doom.

in his room ( _his_ room? what a joke, no one gets assaulted in their own room, it’s as much his room as the body the man so covets is _his_ body) the man whispers sweet nothings as he undresses the both of them, as sephiroth lies there, his body degraded to nothing more than a stranger’s plaything.

he doesn’t want this.

one hand moves his wrists above his head, covers his face, exerts the slightest pressure around his neck.

he doesn’t want this.

the other trails down his cheek, strokes his hair, settles on his waist.

_he doesn’t want this._

the man pulls his legs apart with a smile. _say no if you want me to stop._

he wants to scream.

* * *

the one time he nearly reveals his mark, he nearly dies.

the moment is ordinary at best, unmemorable at worst. as the three of them make their way down an unremarkable shinra hallway, genesis taking the moment to grace them with yet another lesson on the aesthetics of loveless.

_even if the morrow is barren of promises—_

_—nothing shall forestall my return._ the words slip out without a thought, years of reading and rereading such a simple line having instilled a deadly reflex.

genesis had tilted his head at that, curiosity evident. _you know loveless?_

 _a bit._ he fiddled with the hem of his glove, cursing himself for finishing the line, hoping against hope the moment would pass, the topic would be dropped, they would never speak of it again.

lady luck took his side as angeal broke the tension, rolling his eyes. _who_ wouldn’t _know that line,_ he had remarked. _especially with someone parading a certain soul mark around._

genesis had the decency to look abashed at that, face reddening as he declared a race to lazard’s office, taking off without giving them a second glance.

none of them speak of the moment again.

* * *

when sephiroth lies with another outsider, someone attracted to him simply for his gorgeous titles and impressive looks, he feels their hands on him but he doesn't _feel_ , his body is not his own as he feels another man seek pleasure, the momentary gratification and lifetime satisfaction that _they fucked general sephiroth and lived to tell the tale._

he's surprised it's not common knowledge yet, surprised that all of midgar doesn't whisper that there's a certain esteemed war hero who'll spread his legs for the first man lucky enough to meet him on a friday night—but then again he supposes that's the power of shinra, their infinite capability to silence anything that sullies their perfect image.

the man above him stills as sephiroth curls a hand into the sheets, his attempts to cover his face averted as they lean in, steal one, two, three kisses before pulling away, all mockeries of loving intimacy hurriedly forgotten. they pull away, clean up, toss coins on disheveled sheets; a door slams and he's alone again, filthy and used, an object of desire tossed away after his role is done.

he wonders who his mother is.

is this how she had felt, lying with a man who never deserved her, debasing herself for a moment of pleasure, tarnishing herself for the momentary desire to feel something, anything? _jenova_ , hojo had called her, the one time that he had spoken of her, humanity resurfacing in that heartless excuse for a scientist. _she was passionate, and beautiful—_ he had paused, taking notice of the awestruck expression a young sephiroth had worn, the exuberant joy at discovering himself, finally.

 _—and dead._ two words had crushed his young soul, vanquished any blossoming hope. hojo never spoke of jenova again.

he laughs, the noise bubbling out as he curls in on himself—who needs a mother! not him! he doesn't need someone to love him, anyone to love him, he doesn't need it he doesn't need it he doesn't need it—

he dreams of jenova.

had she held him in her arms even once, a proud mother and her beloved child, a moment of serenity and euphoria before leaving him alone in this world, only her blessings protecting her son? or had she abandoned him too early, not even a moment spared for the product of some worthless fling, a child she couldn’t even be bothered to live for?

he dreams of being wrenched from loving arms, he hears jenova scream as sephiroth's locked away behind glass walls, he watches her die in front of him, blood spilling on clinical white floors, and when he looks down, the blade is in his own hand and he's rooted to the spot and his mother is bleeding out and he can't breathe and—

his face is wet when he wakes.

the coins are stacked neatly on the nightstand, a gratuitous tip to buy an innkeeper's silence, and the room is empty before the sun rises.

* * *

half of it makes sense, he supposes.

after all, who wouldn't have fallen for the exalted angeal hewley?

a decorated soldier, the awards shinra heaped on him nothing in comparison to the man himself; a kinder soul than most, gentle despite his appearance. of course, physically…one didn’t have to be a member of the keepers of honor to know angeal was unfairly attractive.

he feels his eyes start to wander and tears them away, scalded, when genesis looks directly at him, makes eye contact and grins at him over the table, rolling his hips and making angeal flush a beguiling red. it's hard to imagine they're his soulmates sometimes, the way they fit together too complete to even consider fitting a third.

* * *

sephiroth had never fully appreciated the bliss that came with dreamless sleep.

why shouldn’t he be forced to watch as jenova chokes him and whispers that he should’ve saved her and no matter what he does she'll never come back alive?

and no matter how much he begs her to tell him, no matter how much he begs for his mother to stay, no matter what he does, he watches as she starts to scream; the smell of blood is nauseating and he drowns in it and there's nothing he can do but watch as the life bleeds out of her eyes—but of course it can’t end there, even as he tries to leave she's still screaming for him and there's nothing he can do _there's nothing he can do_ she's trying to pull him down and he cant find it in himself to resist—

maybe it's better if he just dies.

but there's someone grabbing him and he want to get rid of them but they pull him away and he’s screaming to save jenova but it's hojo and sephiroth wants hojo to hug him, sephiroth wants hojo to save him, sephiroth wants hojo to do _anything_ but grab him and pin him to the ground and he doesn’t want this he doesn’t want this _he doesn’t want this_ , it hurts so badly everything hurts and hojo’s laughing and genesis is watching and angeal is watching and _he can’t move_ and they’re laughing and hojo’s tearing apart his skin and he can’t breathe because even from behind him his mother is choking him because he deserves this he deserves all of this—

and even when he passes out because he can’t breathe when he wakes up he’s going to die because they know of the child a man tried to fuck into him and even as he screams because _he doesn’t want it he wants to kill it he wants to feel it die under his own hands_ he can already feel the needles in his arm and suddenly he regrets being such a morbidly inquisitive child with a scientist as a father figure because did you know? sometimes the deadly one doesn’t work and you don’t die instantly, you lie there unable to move and suffocate because your lungs don’t work and you cant tell anyone, you’re completely frozen, you die alone and scared and in pain and—

he wakes up and there's still needles in his arm because all he is is an experiment and he wants to tear them out he wants to get out he wants to die but he can’t he can’t he can’t—

when he sees his reflection in a dark window, there's still bruises around his neck, but this time they’re of his own making and not some other man's because even when their marks fade sephiroth can’t be happy, can he?

* * *

he pays the price for his sleepless nights nearly a week later.

senses dulled, he sidesteps a moment too late, zack's sword catching on his arm before slicing through flesh, the bloody trail it leaves behind too evident to ignore.

it's too much, his blood on another's blade is too much, living. breathing, existing is too much, and for the first time, the famed general sephiroth collapses in front of an ally.

he doesn't understand why angeal's puppy overreacts, dropping his weapon and rushing to his side–pain is temporary, he tells himself, it means nothing to him—but when his glove comes off, bloodstained verse exposed to foreign eyes for the first time in years, he cannot tell himself he doesn’t recoil from the hurt in zack’s expression.

it’s all too difficult to put back his stoic facade, make his way out, away from the puppy, ignore desperate pleas for him to listen, lock his room's door behind him.

his phone lights up.

 _zack fair_  
> _seph please_  
> _i know ur reading this_  
> _text me back?_  
> _we need to talk_  
> _seph?_

blood drips onto the screen. it lights up again. and again. and again.

he hurls it at a wall.

* * *

the sun has barely set when sephiroth knocks on zack’s door, greets him with a kiss, pushes into his room and slams the door behind him. he know what he's doing, he's learned to wield his charms to his advantage as he watches zack’s restraint crumble, any vestige of doubt carelessly tossed out as he pressed his lips to sephiroth's, blindly fumbling for his bed, consequences be damned.

the heavy card stock card sephiroth had brought, elegant golden script detailing genesis and angeal’s future union, lay abandoned on the floor.

oh how he wishes that’s how it had gone.

instead, zack had resisted, pushing him away with a shout, hissing for him to recognize that _yes, he was suffering, no, he shouldn’t do this_.

sephiroth hadn’t cared, had pushed closer, had silently begged for zack to acquiesce, searched his face for any sign he’d give in, pleaded for something, anything to distract him from the pain of losing both of his soulmates.

it’s filthy, it’s painful, and it makes nothing feel better.

when he wakes, he’s entangled in the bed’s sheets, the other side of the bed as cold as the breeze through the open window.

* * *

at their wedding he manages to choke out a speech, words lauding their union while gloved hands tremble with grief, angeal's smile (oh, it's _heavenly_ , it bathes him in warmth he's never felt before and would kill to feel forever) the only reason he continues as the words blur on the page, tears starting to fall as he falls to pieces.

ink blossoms as the drops stain the page, and when he says he couldn't imagine them with anyone else, trips over his own words to profess their undying love, his eyes meet zack's and suddenly the tears on his face are not for the happy couple, they're in mourning for all he has lost and is yet to lose.

the rest of a carefully rehearsed speech gets barely whispered, and he feels the stares on his bowed head amid the scattered raucous applause before he leaves, ignoring angeal’s worried glances.

the bathrooms are close but not close enough, and when he meets mako blue eyes in the mirror he doesn’t recognize the face that’s reflected, gaunt and haggard as it is.

and when the door swings open, when zack comes in, doesn’t say a word but offers an embrace, it’s all too easy to give in, let his sorrows bleed onto zack’s lapel; zack wraps his arms around him, and for once, sephiroth finally lets his guard down.

* * *

it takes time, but the pain eventually starts to fade.

in the spring, zack finds his soulmate, a young blonde infantryman whose infatuation with the great general sephiroth takes months to die down, even in the face of his own soulmate. it’s somewhat cute.

but it does eventually die down, and he continues to fight, earning pointless laurels by day, learning to overcome the raw pain of heartbreak by night. it takes a month, and another, and another, but when a year has passed, he’s come to peace; who was fate to tell him who to love?

and when angeal pulls him by the hand, dragging him off to another one of lazard’s trivial meetings, angeal’s wedding band presses into his palm and he freezes, pulling away.

maybe he’ll never be over them.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm sorry if there's typos i may be. a little sad 
> 
> [follow me on tumblr for (mostly) not ff stuff](https://vionvend.tumblr.com/)


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